Yesterday, I was thinking to turn off
Personalized Results, so I can see what non-signed in user would see. Don't want to use second browser/private session/etc to because I remember I used to see there is a link below the search result which you can temporarily turn off personalized results, but it has long gone.
I head over to the
Search Settings, funny thing is I didn't see such option even a help entry,
Turn off personal results, mentioning it. I don't have Web History running but I do have Google+ and I can see those additional results/annotations for social circles. I sometimes see Google Help doesn't help at all because things have changed, but help documentation doesn't get updated.
Anyway, what I saw is
Blocking unwanted results, I don't long how long it have been sitting there, but I am glad I finally noticed it!
"You may block up to 500 sites." Oh yeah, that should be enough for me. I tried one and the website was removed from the results immediately.
I don't intent to block spam websites or content farms, those sites could be more the the population of cockroaches in the entire world. I want to block some archive websites as I mentioned in a post about
Google Chrome Personal Blocklist Extension.
For those spams, I can only hope Google Search's algorithm will make them never see the light, rusting at the deep dungeon. Don't even think about it, they are rats, not dragon slayer. This is not video game, you nerdy dude! ;)
As for archive type websites, I don't really need to see them when there are original public source, even they are legit in my definition.
I have seen many times, they outrank original source which is never a good thing in my opinion. Besides, for one source, it could be four or more website doing the archiving. That means every five results, there is only one unique content, the only difference is the design/layout and ads.
Back to the blocking setting, you can download the list as text file, but I don't see an option for you to upload. If you really have many entries, it will be easy to maintain on your end with your favorite editor.
How so? Because I wouldn't just let it be simple text of lines of URL. It will be grouped with comments. For example, if the original archive site down, I can uncomment the archive sites group, then upload the temporarily updated list, so I can see those blocked archive sites.
Of course, I will have my custom shell script to generate uploading list text file, comments will be removed from output. Well, you only need one
grep, actually.
But that's just how I would like to use it if you can upload. Who knows, we might even have API for this. I only really hope this setting will stay, Google has terminated too many good stuff.
Alright, enough talking, time to put into more action. Gotta add more blocked sites to the list, it's Friday!
